What 9/11 evidence unsealed in court reveals years after the attacks | 60 Minutes

In its 2004 report, the September 11 commission described Omar Al-Bayoumi, Saudi National, as “an unlikely candidate for clandestine participation with Islamic extremists.”

But the seized evidence of his apartment in 2001 sheds a different light on Bayoumi, say the former members of the American intelligence community. Gina Bennett, who was a terrorism analyst at the Duration The CIA Terrorist attacksHe believes that the September 11 commission lacked crucial information.

Based on the evidence he has seen, Bennett said he concluded that “Bayoumi was an Al Qaeda facilitator” that provides substantial support for “two kidnappers, without very well being able to have trapped bones.”

The Bayoumi video

The recent evidence arose, which was Without sealing in a federal court Last year as part of the demand for the families of September 11 against Saudi Arabia, homes in Bayoumi. The FBI says that Bayoumi lived in the United States with a student visa before terrorist attacks and a Saudi aviation company in California was a bee, despite not presenting classes or work.

The FBI says that Bayoumi was an operation of the Saudi Intelligence Service and had close links with two of the kidnappers.

While in the United States, Bayoumi recorded video images in Washington in several days in the summer of 1999. Includes inputs and exits of the Capitol, security posts, a model of the building and nearby reference points. Bayoumi points out the monument to Washington and says, in Arabic, “I will get there” and “In detail what is there”. He also points out that the airport is not far away.

The Richard Lambert FBI retired supervisor, who directed the initial investigation of September 11 in San Diego, where Bayoumi and two kidnappers lived before the attacks, is now a consultant to the case presented by the families of September 11. He said that knowing where the monument to Washington is in relation to other areas would be critical for anyone who plans an attack.

Federal researchers believe that flight 93 kidnappers, which crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, planned to reach the United States Capitol as their probable goal. It can be heard that Bayoumi refers to a “plan” in his video.

“I think he is talking to Al Qaeda planners who took him to take the preoperational surveillance video of the planned objective,” Lambert said.

The video was tasks within 90 days after time when Al Qaeda planners of Al Qaeda decided to go to the Capitol. That was when Osama Bin Draweers decided to approach the “Aircraft operation” proposed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the intellectual author of September 11.

The Saudi government says that Bayoumi’s video is just a tourist video, an affirmation that Bennett, who was the first person in the United States government to warn about the dangers of a global jihadist movement directed by Bin Laden – Dispes.

Bennett, who has no participation in the demand of the families of September 11, says that it had not been a flavor to the existence of the Bayoumi videos until 60 minutes brought him to evaluate. She was not the only one in the CIA in the Dark: the former director of the CIA, George Tenet, and Michael Morell, the daily intelligence of President Briefer at the time of attacks, both say they did not know the videos.

The former CIA analyst said she was surprised that they did not learn about the video after the attacks, when Bayoumi was a suspect consulting.

“I think it is a matter of whether they lost their evidence or had filed it in a way that would not have seemed relevant?” Bennett said. “I can see that.”

The plane sketch

The British police discovered the video of the Bayoumi Capitol, along with another 80 tapes and a doctors, duration of a raid in the Saudi man’s apartment in Birmingham, England, about 10 days after the attacks of September 11.

An internal FBI report, dated October 11, 2001, shows that “copies of all recovered exhibitions” were “sent to FBI-New York through Federal Express.” But the Capitol video never arrived at the San Diego field office, where Bayoumi and the kidnappers lived before September 11.

Another seized evidence included a Document with a plane sketch and an equation. The sketch was hidden for more than a decade until 2012, when Danny González, then one of the main investigators of September 11 of the FBI, received a phone call from the nothingness of a FBI evidence technician in Washington. It was tolerated that there were boxes with the name of Bayoumi in them hidden in a Washington warehouse.

“They were going to relocate thesis boxes or destroy thesis boxes, and they wanted to know if I wanted them,” González said. “I said:” Absolutely. ”

He had experts in aviation and aerospace who analyzed the equation in the Sketch document of the plane for the FBI. They concluded that a pilot could use the formula in the document to calculate the descent rate to achieve a target on the horizon.

Bayoumi, who was never accused of a crime and moved to Saudi Arabia after September 11, was asked about the sketch as part of the demand duration of a deposition of 2021. He confirmed that the sketch was his, but said he remembered little more about it, including his handwritten notes on the height of the plane from the earth in miles, along with the distance of the plane to the plane to the horizon.

“Maybe this was an equation that we studied before at high school, and I was trying to remember if I will be able to discover and solve it or not,” he said through a translator when he pressed it.

Bayoumi connections with September 11 kidnappers

There is no evidence that Bayoumi has shared the equation with any of the kidnappers, but found the first two to reach the United States in early 2000, almost two years before the September 11 attacks.

Bayoumi states with the kidnappers-Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar in a casual encounter in a restaurant in Los Angeles. Then he helped them move to San Diego, find them a place to live in their own apartment complex, encode the lease and help them open a bank account.

Hello, he only organized a party, which also videos, capturing one of the kidnappers in the camera. Bayoumi then presented the possible kidnappers to others in the community, who helped them obtain government identifications and enroll in English classes and flight schools.

Bennett says that Bayoumi was indispensable for the success of the plot of the kidnappers because they did not speak English, had little formal education and no previous exhibition to life in the West.

While Bayoumi and the Saudi government say that Bayoumi’s actions were innocent, González does not “for a second” believes that it could be a coincidence. I could find evidence or bayoumi helping anyone kidnappers.

“It should be here under the judicial system,” González said about Bayoumi.

What researchers would have done with discovered evidence

González, now the demand consultant of the families of September 11, says he never knew about the duration of the Bayoumi video in the 15 years he worked in the case. According to González, none of the cases of cases in San Diego or in New York knew about the video of the Bayoumi Capitol until last year, was discovered in the Federal Court as part of the demand of the families of September 11 against Saudi Arabia.

“And we are talking about joint terrorism working groups that not only have the FBI, but we have other state, local and federal agencies,” González said. “They didn’t know it either.”

The special agent from the FBI still does not know how it is possible that the video was not broadcast.

“That angry at me,” he said. “When I saw that video, I knew exactly what it was.”

González said he needed that information to do his job. He believes he could have used the Capitol’s video to build a case against Bayoumi. González said he would have taken him to the United States prosecutor’s office.

“It was a terrorist investment, but it was also a mass murder,” González said. “So there were criminal charges along with terrorism charges.”

Bennett said he believes that Bayoumi’s video was so significantly that he should go to the White House after it was first discovered.

“We were informing the President and the National Security Council. We did not expect this [terror attack] It was a “one and ready.” We expected that Al Qaeda continues to try, “Bennett said about the period after attacks.” The resources were completely trying to under any additional layout. “

She says that the new evidence raises many important questions: who else was involved, if there were other networks, any person involved still operates in the United States or elsewhere, and there is evidence of September 11 in a box?

That information could help the United States learn what went wrong and learn not to make a mistake again, he said.

The Government of Saudi Arabia has presented a motion in a federal court to dismiss the demand of the families of September 11, saying that Noner the Kingdom or Bayoumi had something to do with the attacks. The judge who supervises the case is expected to govern the motion of a child. An FBI spokesman said the agency would not comment on litigation.